故事说理、儒术选士与汉代子书的兴衰

Reasoning through Storytelling,Confucianism as Established Standard for Official Selection and Rise and Fall of Philosophy Books in the Han Dynasty

秦始皇焚书使学术生存空间受到严重挤压,但由于历时不长,并未形成真正的断绝。汉代学术与战国学术血脉相通、前后相继,战国末期形成的子书采用故事说理的思维特征被汉代子书完整地继承下来。以西汉武帝朝为分界,汉代子书呈现出前兴后衰的局面,此由内外两种因素促合而成。从外部因素来讲,一方面,儒术为选仕标准的确立使百家之学成为"无用"之术,其生存空间被迅速压缩;另一方面,"师法"、"家法"的遵循使得儒家子学因循有馀,创新乏力。就汉代子书自身而言,战国末期形成的故事说理思维特质与司马迁《史记》异辕同轨,后者编撰的成功引领史学新时代的到来,且自此长盛不衰。在内外两种因素的作用下,子书创作在西汉后期走上非主流的不归路。

The burning of books by Qin Shi Huang(the First Emperor of a unified China and founder of the Qin dynasty) posed a big threat to academic development, but it didn’t cause a break in scholarship as it didn’t last a long time. The scholarship of Han Dynasty is the inheritance and continuation of that of the Warring States period. At the end of the Warring States period, philosophy books mostly illustrated points with stories, which was completely inherited by philosophy books in the Han Dynasty. The reign of Emperor Hanwu is a watershed in the development of philosophy books. Philosophy books flourished before the reign of Emperor Hanwu but declined after his reign, which was caused by the combination of internal and external factors. As for external factors, on the one hand, the establishment of Confucianism as standard for selecting officials rendered other scholastic thoughts "useless", and thus greatly compressed their development space. On the other hand, the adherence to "Shi Fa(tracing the source)" and "Jia Fa(evolving into a school)" made Confucian teachings have too much conformity but little creativity. As for the philosophy books of the Han Dynasty, their characteristics of reasoning with stories was very much the same as the tactic Sima Qian used in Records of History. Sima Qian’s success ushered in a new era of historiography, and it has endured ever since. Under the influence of both internal and external factors, in the late Western Han Dynasty, the creation of philosophy books took a non-mainstream path and there is no turning back ever since.